


These Here Are My Desires

by AndreaLyn



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-02
Updated: 2011-09-02
Packaged: 2017-10-23 09:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/248613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Steve gets out of jail, Danny needs all the help he can get.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Here Are My Desires

**Author's Note:**

  * For [austen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/austen/gifts).



> This exists because of the finale, but more-so because of [austen](austen.livejournal.com/ ), who asked for it after an auction win. Thanks endlessly to [b_radwick](b-radwick.livejournal.com/) and [templemarker](templemarker.livejournal.com/ ) for helping with the beta. The title comes from _Roll Away Your Stone_ by Mumford and Sons.

“Rachel, I need help.”

Danny’s racking up one hell of a long distance phone bill this month with as many desperate pleas as he’s sending over from Oahu to the mainland in an urgent hope that one day he’s going to make a phone call and suddenly Rachel (his beautiful and smart ex-wife, yet still not perfect) is going to know what to do.

The crackle of silence greets him for a long moment.

“Shit,” Danny says, when he realizes his error. “It’s early there, isn’t it? Fuck, I’m sorry,” he keeps going, profanity falling off his tongue too easily with the frustration. Danny sits back in the chair, pressing his fingertips to his forehead as he tries to let some of his anger at the situation ebb away. In the dim lighting of his cramped apartment, he feels more trapped than ever and every time he thinks of confinement, he thinks of _Steve_ and they’re right back to where this all started. “He’s out in three days and I don’t know what to do. Rach, babe, I need you here,” he begs. “I’m gonna move my stuff into his place, but I need your help.”

“Daniel, you know the man,” Rachel finally speaks, every word seeming like a sigh. “Of all people, you know him best. Do you really need my help?”

“Yes,” Danny says, raw. “I want you here. I want you and Grace with me and I want you to tell me what to do. What do I do?”

“Is Commander McGarrett really all that different, Danny?” Rachel asks.

“You can call him Steve.”

“I’m not sure I can,” she replies, with an odd hint of _something_ in her voice that Danny can’t even begin to place, not at this hour of the night and not when he’s currently grappling with an emotionally scarred Navy SEAL who’s about to be released into the public in a week’s time thanks to new evidence introduced into the case. “I thought this was what you wanted, Danny. I thought you wanted to come home.”

It stings to hear her say it like that -- _home_ \-- and there’s a part of him that wants it more than anything else. “I can’t leave him like this. You should see him, Rach. He’s lost weight, it’s like he’s forgotten how to be a normal person and considering he was already lacking in those skills before all this happened, you can only imagine how bad it is. Please come back,” Danny begs. “Move in with me and Steve, as long as it takes for things to get right.”

“And what if they’re never right, Danny?” Rachel asks, sounding sympathetic. “Are you going to be able to leave Commander McGarrett if he never manages to heal?”

“It’s Steve,” is all Danny can think to say. “He’ll find a way to get back to normal, but I need you here with me while it happens. Rach, babe, I love you. My plans haven’t changed. I want to be with you and Grace, I want to be with the baby, but...”

“But Steve,” Rachel interrupts and somehow with those two words, she seems like she understands the situation better than Danny ever will. “Give us a few days. I’d like to wrap things up here and get the apartment rented out. We’ll have to say goodbye to your family and close down some accounts.”

Danny feels struck, like there’s a vice clenching his heart. “Rach, this...this isn’t permanent.”

“Danny, I know that you have issues with Hawaii, but even if things do go back to normal, they will take some time. I wanted a fresh start,” she admits, unsure. “Commander McGarrett has been gifted one. Maybe it’s a sign that I need to make penance before I can be happy again.”

“So, you’ll be here?”

“I’ll call you with the details, Danny,” Rachel says. “We love you.”

“I love you, too,” he says, relief flooding him. “Hey, come on, go back to sleep, I got you up at a ridiculous hour.” He hears her rueful laugh on the other end of the line and he manages to get in a quick, ‘Say hi to Grace’ before she hangs up.

Danny’s left staring at notices of Steve’s release, forms he has to sign given that Steve is only out on conditional release and has to wear an anklet until the courts fully process the evidence.

He’s in for a long set of weeks.

Rachel can’t get there soon enough.

* * *

Of all the things Steve had been expecting, walking out as a semi-free man into the world to find Danny waiting for him – well, that was expected. Seeing Rachel and Grace beside him? Not so much. Steve presses his lips tightly together when Rachel waves politely, but he doesn’t have time to focus on it before Grace takes off at full-tilt and jumps into his arms.

“Uncle Steve!” she announces eagerly. “Danno said you were gonna be wearing orange.”

“Nah,” he drawls. “I got my old clothes on good behavior.” Which means he’s wearing the black shirt and black pants that Danny had so affectionately labelled his ‘ninja wear’. In the middle of the day, it doesn’t seem to serve much of a purpose. He looks over Grace’s hair to subtly scope out the situation between Danny and Rachel – who was supposed to be on the mainland with Grace, according to Chin’s phone calls.

They seem cozy. Danny’s got his arm wrapped around Rachel’s waist and she’s looking like she’s in the middle of her second trimester. They look like a happy family and Steve wishes that didn’t sting so badly.

He forces himself to focus on Grace and the fact that Danny came at all. “So what are you doing here?” he asks, affecting a happy tone.

“Danno and Mom and me...”

“And I!” Danny shouts from the car.

“And I,” Grace corrects. “We’re gonna be living with you. There’s a party, too, and Uncle Chin is there and Kono brought a really nice cake. Mom and Dad took the guest room, but they said if you gave me permission, I could have Aunt Mary’s room,” she goes on, suddenly reserved and polite, like she’s worried Steve will say no. “And your room will be your room, obviously.”

“You’re...” Steve blinks, suddenly speechless. He hoists Grace up on his hip and wanders over to the Camaro. “I’m sorry, you’re all moving in? Chin said Danny would help me out for a few days, but...” But then Steve had assumed that Danny would be leaving for Jersey and leaving the islands behind him. “You’re moving in,” he says again, less of a question and more of an epiphany.

“Do try not to sound so happy,” Rachel says, a terse smile on her lips. “Come along, Commander. If we’re late, I’ve been told that the best of the barbeque meat will be given to other people. Given that you’re the man of the hour, we can’t let that happen.”

Steve nods, but after that, the whole evening seems to pass in a blur.

He faintly recalls listening to Danny rant about the prison system and traffic in Honolulu, remembers the supportive squeeze that Grace gives his arm, and the look of pity on Rachel’s face every time she looks back at him.

The party at the house isn’t much better. Steve feels like he sleepwalks through it. Kono hugs him so tight that he has to forcibly remove her and Chin corners him to talk about the anklet and his boundaries. He _thinks_ he’d seen Jenna and Max, briefly met the new Governor, but it’s all a haze that doesn’t clear itself up until he’s lying in his own bed, staring at the ceiling, and trying to hear through the thin walls of the house.

“I can begin to see what you mean,” Rachel is saying. Steve has to strain to hear, but Mary’s right. The walls are as bad as sheets when it’s all gone quiet. With all the guests gone and the early hours of morning creeping on, Steve would be able to hear conversations anywhere in the house. “He barely touched any food tonight.”

“I don’t even know where to start with any of this, Rach. What do I do?”

“You go back to work,” Rachel says. “We still need to draw in a salary, especially if Commander McGarrett remains under house arrest for a long period of time. I’ll work from home and supplement the income. The divorce has gone through with Stan, which means I’ll be receiving a small amount of alimony. Financially, we’re set, Danny,” she’s reassuring him.

“Are you going to be okay with Steve?”

“I think Grace and I can manage one SEAL,” Rachel teases.

Things go silent and Steve’s over-active imagination fills in the blanks. They’re kissing. They’re curling up under the covers and she’s running her fingers through his hair. He’s whispering how much he loves her against the soft skin of her neck. They pity him and are treating him more like an injured pet than a person and he might have put up with it -- if it were anyone but Danny.

Steve sleeps poorly that night.

He wakes up to the smell of bacon sizzling in the kitchen and loud voices. There’s singing and when Steve focuses, he can hear Rachel and Grace’s voices, but not Danny’s in the mix. He rolls over to check the time on the clock and grimaces when it reads half past eleven. Danny must already be at work.

Steve shifts out of the bed and plants his feet on the ground, but doesn’t do much more than stand. That’s all he does have to do, because it sets off a creak in the floorboard and calls attention to the fact that he’s awake.

“Uncle Steve!” Grace shouts from downstairs, her rendition of an old Spice Girls song interrupted in her eagerness. “There’s breakfast and Danno left you a note!”

Steve doesn’t go down immediately. He takes the time to stare at his reflection in the mirror, fingers brushing over the shorn-short hair on his head, where the silver flecks still shine through. His cheeks are gaunt and there’s a dullness to his eyes – like he’s still expecting to be pushed into a cage at any moment. He still _looks_ like a prisoner. Steve forcibly turns away, pulling on a sleeveless shirt and a pair of gym shorts. When he realizes how much attention that calls to the anklet, he changes into a pair of sweats and lopes downstairs to see what’s waiting.

Rachel is wearing one of Mary’s joke aprons with a spatula in one hand and a cell in the other, texting one-handed as she flips the pancakes distractedly. “We were wondering if you were going to pull a Sleeping Beauty on us,” she says, glancing up the once to offer a reassuring smile. “But I promised Danny that he’s the fairest in the land.”

“It’s all that blond hair,” Steve agrees, settling in at his place at the table.

Grace is already sitting down and watching him curiously, like she can tell that he feels off. She’s eating oatmeal and apple slices. It makes him wonder why there’s pancakes and bacon on the stove. He glances over his shoulder and tries to evaluate Rachel. She’s visibly pregnant and Steve has to wonder if they’ve run a paternity test to ensure it really is Danny’s.

Steve’s not sure why he’s clinging so desperately to the hope.

Maybe, he thinks, maybe if the baby’s not his, things between him and Rachel will fall apart. Maybe then Steve will get the chance to make up on the fact that he was too slow to sneak in and try things out while the window of opportunity was open.

“Who’s eating the fried stuff?” he asks in confusion when he sees that Rachel’s breakfast looks similar to Grace’s.

“You are,” she announces, handing a folded-note to Steve. “From Danny. He’ll be back at lunch and I’ve been warned that I’m allowed to call him in the event of an emergency. Strangely, he classified ‘bad seventies music’ as an emergency, but I have no idea what he’s talking about. It’s a good decade,” she says defensively.

Steve can’t help a private smile as he takes the note into hand. “He’s just stubborn.”

“That, he is. Grace will be off to a friend’s for the day so she won’t be underfoot. I’ll try and stay out of your way, but read the note, first. Danny says there are details about your anklet there, as well,” Rachel says, turning back to the breakfast preparation.

Steve forces his thoughts away from the endless and destructive loop that taunted him about Danny and Rachel in order to open the note.

 _Steven:_

 _First off, eat the breakfast. I know it goes against your healthy foods only policy, but you look like you’ve been surviving on potatoes and lite-gruel. Indulge a little, for me. Second, Chin’s sent you a text with your boundaries, but they basically translate to a two mile radius. They wanted one, but we argued two so you could run. It also extends to the ocean. Kono and Chin are coming by tonight and they’ll install a buoy so you know how far you can go either way._

 _Rach is going to be working from home. You two got along so swell last time, I figured you’d be okay if you had tea together and bitched about me behind my back. Make sure she’s drinking the decaf stuff? She says she is, but I want to make sure. I don’t want my kid coming out overly caffeinated._

 _Before you ask, yes, Steve, it’s mine. We ran the tests. It’s a little boy and she’s due in four months. She’s doing me a big favor, what with moving back here to help me take care of you. I don’t know if it’ll take four months, but we’ll talk if that’s the case. I wouldn’t want to bring a newborn into your house without your permission._

 _I’ll drop by for lunch._

 _Yours,  
Danno_

Steve can’t decide if he wants to crumple the note up and light it on fire or tuck it away and keep it safe. He decides on the latter, for now. He looks up in time to see Rachel putting a plate in front of him, piled high with bacon and pancakes. She presses a hand affectionately to Grace’s hair. “Danny will be by in an hour.” They don’t stay at the table, leaving Steve to eat alone.

Despite his freedom and being in his own house, Steve feels like he hasn’t escaped solitary.

Danny’s visit puts him in a better frame of mind. They sit around with coffee and catch up on all the things Steve’s missed in the past few months. By the time Danny heads back to work, Steve feels better about the day and a swim helps his mood past that. He goes to bed that evening feeling like he might not be a better man, yet, but he’s getting there.

The days continue like that with little variation.

Rachel cooks breakfast and Steve cleans. Grace picks a new song every few days and doesn’t stop singing it. Danny always stops by for lunch and keeps Steve apprised of things and Steve is grateful for every private smile that _he_ gets out of Danno. Steve swims and surfs within the two-mile radius that’s been set up, eats dinner with Danny’s family, and goes to bed.

Things change two months after he’s been released. Grace is back to school, which leaves him and Rachel in the house alone during the day. Typically, Steve avoids her. It’s not that he dislikes her. He likes her just fine, but he can’t stop seeing her as the woman who took Danny away from him, as childish and irrational as that is.

“Bloody hell,” Rachel is swearing away in the laundry room. “Damn, _damn_ , damn.”

Steve looks up from the part of the Marquis he’s been cleaning, debating whether she really needs help or whether she’s just letting off steam. She’s in her seventh month, now, and Danny’s warned him in the halfway that her emotions are running a bit scattered. Steve tries to be respectful and give her space, but he couldn’t live with himself if something was actually wrong and he didn’t check on her.

He finds her in the laundry room clutching a tie in her hands, stained red from its usual blue and white colour. She’s pressing it to her forehead, eyes glistening with tears.

“Commander!” she says in surprise, her whole body jolting. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to...” She turns her attention down and lets out a helpless noise. “It’s the tie his mother gave him when he graduated from the Academy, it’s one of his favorite ties and I’ve ruined it.”

Steve steps forward carefully. He remembers stories from his father about how his mother was the sweetest being that you’d ever meet, except when she was pregnant. Then, he’d had to walk on eggshells because he just didn’t know what was coming next.

“Hey,” Steve says, trying to speak to her like he’s soothing a spooked witness. “It’s just a tie. Come on, it’s not that big a deal.”

She lets out a heavy laugh. “Oh, but it is,” she insists, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand. “You may see a tie, that’s all you see, but I know what Danny will see. He’ll see me screwing things up while you’re there recovering so well and looking so healthy and attractive, being so _good_ for Grace. He’s going to see the tie and he’s going to wonder why on earth he picked _me_.”

Steve feels like he’s just punctured his foot on some of those aforementioned eggshells.

“Rachel, I’m not understanding,” Steve says apologetically, stepping forward to try and press a hand to her back. If nothing else, he has to try and calm her down. That’s the only hope he’s got. “Danny already picked you. There’s no contest. He chose you.”

“And yet,” Rachel says, arching her brow upwards as she clutches a ruined tie in hand, “here we are in Hawaii, standing in your house. You see, Commander, you know Danny very well, but I know him better,” she says. “I’ve known him for the better part of a decade and I know when he loves something or someone with all his heart.”

Steve’s grip tightens, his fingers clenching the fabric of cotton at Rachel’s back. “I don’t follow.”

“He casts his love out there so desperately and when you’re hooked, there’s nothing like it. You’re so overwhelmed by it, that New Jersey attitude,” she says with a laugh before she fixes her eyes on him, serious as the grave. “He loves me. I don’t doubt that. I never have. When he wanted to kill me with his bare hands, there was a part of him that still loved me.”

“That’s – good? That’s good, right?”

“It is,” she agrees. “But you see, Commander. Here’s the problem. He loves you, too, and he’s decided that I’m the horse to bet on, so to speak. He just can’t stop loving you.” She stares at the tie in her hand and makes a noise of discontent. “He’s going to be so angry.”

“I really don’t think he’ll leave you over a tie, Rachel,” Steve says, numb from what she’s telling him. He doesn’t believe her. He does. He wants to believe her and he can’t afford to, all at the same time.

He wants Danny so badly some mornings that it hurts him to wake up and remember that Danny is waking up in the arms of someone he loves. He watches her so intently that he doesn’t pay attention to the clasp at the door being opened, then closed.

“It’s not just the tie,” Rachel says. She’s slowly regaining her composure, turning her body away from Steve as if that will save her some embarrassment. “It’s going to be little thing followed by little thing until he realizes how desperately in love he is with someone else under this very roof and ...well, Commander, I really don’t know that I trust that you’d rebuke him.”

She’s not wrong.

Still, Steve’s morals are made of stronger stuff than that. “Rachel, he picked you. I respect Danny too much to doubt his choice.”

It’s that moment when Steve realizes what the sound had been. It’s not Grace coming back from her school-day. No, because it’s too early for that. It’s lunchtime, which means that Danny’s come back to observe their ritual and it means that he’s just heard both of them discussing him as though he were a toy to be shared.

Steve takes a moment to compose himself, only looking to his side when he can practically feel the itch of Danny’s attention on his skin. He’s not surprised by what he finds. Danny looks so damn disappointed and half-furious and he’s splitting that look between him and Rachel. Now is the time for pleas, desperate ones, but as hard as Steve tries to find one, nothing comes out.

He looks to Rachel desperately.

She doesn’t seem so tongue-tied. “Daniel,” she says, striding across the room to catch his hand in hers, trying to drag him closer. “It’s not how it sounds.”

“So, you two aren’t having a conversation about who I love more?” Danny replies dubiously. “Because, babe, that’s kind of exactly what it sounded like. I mean, fuck, I guess I should be glad I didn’t walk in on you schtupping each other, but this is a pretty crappy relief, as far as they go.” He hasn’t shaken Rachel’s grasp off, but the other hand is buried in his hair as he shoots Steve a helpless look.

It’s hard not to read Danny’s expression as, _how could you do this to me?_

Yeah, Steve knows that’s not the case, but it feels like it.

“Is _this_ what you two seriously do all day? I go back to work and you sit around and compare notes about what...who...” Danny’s sputtering now, like he’s been rendered speechless by these impossible events. “For the record, I love you,” he says to Rachel, a hint of desperation lurking around his eyes. He places a hand reverently on her stomach and Steve tries to ignore the way it feels like his heart is being stabbed.

“I know,” Rachel says softly. “But, Danny, be honest.”

Danny drags his gaze away from Rachel’s pregnant stomach and stares at Steve for a long time, looking at him with equal parts sadness, anger, and something that resembles fondness (if Steve were in the habit of being optimistic, these days). “You idiot,” Danny breathes out. Rachel presses a hand to his back, as if supporting him. “I was gonna go back to Jersey.”

“You still can, Danno,” Steve says, unable to take it any longer. He’s so _angry_ , but it’s better than being hurt.

“He doesn’t get it,” Danny says loudly to Rachel. “He doesn’t get it,” he repeats, apparently to the universe. “Steve, you just don’t get it.”

“No, Danny, apparently, I don’t!” Steve shouts back at him, his patience having run to zero. “What don’t I get?”

“That I love New Jersey, that I _love_ it there, but I stayed here for you. Months later and I’m still here, for you!” Danny says, leaning into Rachel’s hold on him. They look like a united front, standing there together like that. They look like the kind of perfect couple that winds up on magazine covers.

Steve has no place intruding on them and their happy family.

He steadfastly ignores anything that Danny is saying, lifting his chin up in a defensive reaction and casting his eyes to the side.

“I learned a long time ago not to get in the way of Danny’s determined mindset, Commander.” After a long span of silence – one that Steve had taken as an indication that Danny might leave it alone (as if he would ever do that), it’s Rachel who finally pipes up. “Am I happy that my Danny’s given his heart away like this? No. But it happened while I was looking elsewhere and I’d only be blaming myself. The truth is...the truth is that I want him to be happy and you make him happy when I can’t. When I’m having a trying day, when I can’t do it, you can. I’m about as grateful for that as much as I hate you for it,” she says, calm and clear about things, the emotion showing on her face. “I came back to Hawaii because I love him, but he stayed here because he loves you.”

“Can’t you see how complicated this is?” Steve protests, his voice feeling scratchy. “You’re a family. You have Grace, you have a baby on the way.”

“And we live under your roof,” Rachel patiently replies. “Steve, the home I lived in belonged to Stan and I think you and I can agree that Daniel’s apartment left something to the imagination of even the most desperate vagabond.”

“Hey!”

“We’re not talking to you right now, dear,” Rachel cuts Danny off before he can get launched on a protest. “We would be homeless if it weren’t for your generosity, Steven. How are things not complicated already when Danny isn’t sure about returning to New Jersey _ever_?”

Steve’s attention whips to Danny, shocked by _that_ news. “Danny. ...what?”

Danny’s shaking his head, trying to play it down, but Steve can tell this isn’t new. Rachel is giving him a superior look, like she’s won the battle of wits, and Danny doesn’t know what to say. Steve, meanwhile, is wearing an anklet that restricts his movement to two miles, is in love with the man standing across the room from him, and would do just about _anything_ to have some part of him.

Even if it means he has to share.

“I don’t know,” is all Steve manages to say. He can’t get over the fact that he doesn’t want to disrupt Danny and Rachel’s relationship and this seems like the easiest way to do it. He drops the subject and Danny lets him.

The issue doesn’t stay dropped.

It’s a long time before it comes up again, but two months after young Joseph Williams is born (JJ, for short, because they named him partially after John and Steve should have seen it coming, then), he catches Rachel looking at him strangely.

It had been a tacit agreement when Joseph was born, that Rachel and Steve would take the care in turns since they were both home. Now, it’s Steve’s turn. He’s spending his time washing the last soap bubbles gently from Joseph’s platinum blond hair, grinning when the baby turns speculative blue eyes on him.

Then, as he’s swathing Joseph with the thick cotton towel, he turns and sees Rachel looking at him the way she’s only ever looked at Danny in her life. She seems to catch herself doing it, flushing a bright pink before she returns to typing away at her laptop, intensely interested in her work.

“What?” Steve asks, unable to leave it alone. Joseph grabs at his hair, babbling pure nonsense and letting out a variety of sounds that remind Steve so furiously of Danny that he can’t help but grin. He tries to subdue it, but it remains – wide as ever. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing your Navy honour can’t handle,” she replies dryly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Danny said you’d be good with the baby. Well, he said you’d probably teach him skills through staggered objectives, but he admitted you’d be good,” she says.

“And?”

Steve’s missing the point. Actually, Steve’s not even sure there is a point. If there is, he’s standing on dry land looking through a scope and the point is doing its best to hide in plain sight.

“Surely you know the affect a handsome man with a young baby,” she informs him. “In combination with the near-constant vivid image of you and my husband in bed together, you’ve become somewhat of a recurring presence in my fantasies.”

It’s Steve’s turn to go red. “Rachel,” he gets out, sputtering. “I don’t...I don’t think we should be discussing this in front of JJ.”

“He’s two months old and if we don’t start discussing it, we never will. I’m tired of ignoring it,” she says archly. “Give him here. It’s time for his nap, otherwise Grace will be home and will want to play and he’ll never get to sleep.”

Steve hands Joseph over, his mind still stuck on her inference that she’s been thinking about him and Danny in bed. Hell, now that she’s brought it up, all that Steve can think about is Danny in bed – splayed out on top of the sheets, his shirt resting open to reveal the hair on his chest and those strong shoulders.

It’s an easy jump from vivid image to fantasy, picturing what it would be like to ride Danny until he’s hoarse from screaming Steve’s name. Another moment of fantasizing and suddenly Steve’s hard, grateful that he’d listened to Rachel and put Joseph down for a nap. She returns in the middle of Steve’s daydreaming, clearing her throat to get his attention.

He raises a brow; attempting to remain calm under this strange duress the Williams family seems to push him to. “Rachel, what’s this about?”

“Danny and I have been talking,” she informs him. “Well, Danny’s been prodding and asking questions and we reached new territory, just the other night. It seems...” Rachel takes in a deep breath, rolling her eyes. “Well, Danny has a tendency to observe what others miss – he calls it that fine deductive talent of his. He’s noticed that ever since Joseph was born that I’m looking at you like...”

“Like what?”

“I’m trying to recall Danny’s _exact_ words,” she says, precise and crisp. “It was fairly entertaining. I believe he said I looked at you like I wanted to know if you tasted as good as you looked. Crude. I turned it around on him and made my own point, but we agreed that neither of us are very much content to stay under your roof without finding out.”

“Rachel,” Steve says, trying to tamp down the hope that’s trying so desperately to rise. “Is this really the sort of conversation we should be having on our own?”

“God, no, you two would be hopeless,” Danny says, having snuck into the room at some point in the last few moments. Steve’s slacking on his observing skills. Years ago, he would have noticed Danny first thing. Even months ago, before prison, Danny never would have surprised him like this. “Rachel texted me when she was putting Joey down for his nap, said that today’s the day. VS Day.”

“...please don’t say...” Steve says, the horrifying epiphany dawning on him.

“Victory over Steve day,” Danny crows with smug delight.

How the hell did Steve ever fall in love with this man? That’s what he’d _love_ to know.

“He’s flagging, Daniel,” Rachel says, peeking past Danny’s shoulder to observe him. Steve feels like he’s in a zoo and if it weren’t for the anklet, he’d have bolted the minute that he realized they had ganged up on him. Danny, specifically, is advancing on Steve like he only ever does on perps and really fresh malasadas.

There’s determination in each step and Steve debates the merits of jumping out of a window – except there isn’t a window anywhere near.

“You’re a goof,” Danny accuses, cupping Steve’s cheek gently as he slides his palm over the stubbled skin there.

“I’m a former convict,” Steve says in reply, if they’re going over the facts. “I’m an ex-SEAL who has some pretty marked PTSD and abandonment issues,” he lists, his brow furrowing deeper upon the listing of each additional trait, “Also, I’ve dabbled with the idea of becoming a member of the Green party.”

Danny glances over his shoulder to Rachel, as if he’s asking for permission. “Go ahead,” she says. “Unless the Green party thing isn’t a joke. In which case, I may need to call your parole officer and inform them you’ve gone mad.”

He’s ready to reply, but Danny isn’t going to let him. He leans in, claiming Steve’s lips for a kiss that’s (for Steve) almost a year too late and not half as hard as he wants it to be. He grabs Danny by the shoulder, pushing him until he can pin him to the nearest wall and take and _take_ until he can’t get an ounce more from Danny – until he’s sure that Danny’s lips will be pink and swollen and that every time Danny licks his lower lip, he’ll think of Steve. When Danny pulls away to breathe sharply, Steve gives him three seconds before kissing him again like a drunk in need of another glass.

“Danny,” he murmurs. “God, Danny,” he exhales reverently, fingers trailing down his shoulder and clutching onto his hip.

Sometime in the middle of this, Rachel has approached to join, sliding her hands over Steve’s back. The delicate press of her fingernails against his shoulder blades makes him shiver – goosebumps erupting over his forearms – and suddenly he’s the one in the middle and the one without control.

“You’re right,” Rachel says, when she’s through giving Steve a hickey that, frankly, has threatened the stability of his knees. “He is stubborn.”

“Yeah,” Danny agrees in a punch-drunk giddy way. “It’s why I love him.”

“You said it’s why you were gonna kill me someday,” Steve weakly protests.

“Don’t argue,” Rachel orders. “At least, not until we’re done with you.”

Well-versed in how determined Rachel can be, Steve doesn’t say a thing as they take turns pushing him up towards the master bedroom – checking in on Joey while they go. Months ago, Steve had thought this couldn’t get any stranger, but pinned to the bed by Danny and Rachel both, he admits that maybe _strange_ isn’t the worst thing in the world.

* * *

FIVE YEARS LATER

“C’mon, JJ, make the foothold!” Steve calls back over his shoulder, ascending the last few feet of the rock face easily. He can practically _feel_ Danny worrying, even from hundreds of feet away, but Steve had given in to the compromise of using ropes ‘just in case’. “You can do it, bud.”

The other compromise he made had been with Rachel and that had been more Steve obeying whatever Rachel said. In this case, it was that he wasn’t to take JJ on any hill higher than fifty feet. Her next edict involved Danny staying five hundred feet away so he wouldn’t narrate the whole thing in a browbeating manner.

JJ struggles slightly, but eventually he gets a good hold, toe nudging in. He seeks out Steve, a wide grin on his face. “Dad! Dad, _look_.”

“Yeah, I see, sport,” Steve replies, proud as any father would be. It hadn’t been expected – for JJ to look up at Steve when he was just an infant and babble out ‘Da’ – but Steve’s not complaining. Danny, and later Rachel, had come around to the fact that if they were going to keep Steve in their lives in such an important role, these things were bound to happen. “Good job. Keep coming, the view’s great up here!”

He can even see Danny pacing back and forth in the parking lot, practically wringing the hair from his head. Steve leans over the edge and hauls JJ up with his hands under his armpits, settling the boy next to him and looking out on the land below.

Soon, they’ll have to be back for Grace’s special dinner – since she’s heading to high school this year, Danny and Rachel are keen to spoil her and Steve’s not in disagreement. The whole team will be there and Steve’s been told he’s allowed to scare off all of Grace’s male friends. Danny will probably have to put on his reading glasses to go over all the cards and Rachel will thread her fingers through Steve’s greying hair and comment about how her men are growing so much older, so quickly.

It’s going to be a good night.

It’s going to keep being a good life.


End file.
